A group of conservative students at UC Berkeley, frustrated that administrators have so far denied them the privileges of a recognized student organization, has asked a federal judge to intervene in the campus dispute.

The students want the judge to force the campus to rescind its decision that the Young Americans for Liberty, a local chapter of a national group, is so similar to the Cal Libertarians, an existing student group, that the newcomers can’t be formally recognized until both of them discuss the possibility of merging.

On Monday, the students responded by suing UC President Janet Napolitano, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ and other campus officials in U.S. District Court in Oakland.

The students’ lawyers, based in Washington, D.C., argue in their lawsuit that without formal recognition for Young Americans for Liberty, the students will lose campus fees that recognized groups receive, won’t be able to meet on campus, and will be barred from sponsoring guest speakers.

The suit says UC Berkeley has about 1,000 recognized student groups and that the decision to deny or delay recognition for Young Americans for Liberty violates the students’ constitutional rights to free speech, association and equal protection. The suit accuses UC Berkeley of favoring liberal groups over conservative ones and says many of those appear to overlap: Cal Berkeley Democrats and Students for Hillary, for example, and the Queer Student Union and the Queer Alliance & Resource Center.

UC Berkeley “categorically rejects” the idea that it considers any group’s political beliefs when deciding its status, according to a statement released by the campus in response to the lawsuit. “It has never happened in the past, and will never happen in the future,” said the statement from spokesman Dan Mogulof.

As an example, he said, the campus recently recognized the Berkeley Conservative Society.

As for the status of Young Americans for Liberty, “no final decision has been made, as the process is not yet complete,” the statement said. Because the group’s application was “very similar” to the other group’s, “all they need to do is confer with the Libertarian organization and decide if they want to combine or remain separate.”

At UC Berkeley, the dispute had explosive — and expensive — consequences this year. In February, masked rioters caused $100,000 in damage on campus when they stopped Milo Yiannopoulos, a right-wing provocateur, from delivering his planned speech at the invitation of the Berkeley College Republicans. The group sued the university in April, claiming the UC Berkeley administration was biased against conservative students after it restricted when and where another right-wing pundit, Ann Coulter, could speak on campus. She never showed.

A judge sidelined that lawsuit in September, days after Yiannopoulos returned to campus for 15 minutes — and prompted UC Berkeley to spend $800,000 on security.

In their suit, Young Americans for Liberty claims they have “suffered irreparable harm” and are asking for unspecified monetary damages, including attorneys’ fees.

The suit asks the judge to halt the practice of denying recognition to student groups that are too similar to existing groups, and prevent the campus from collecting student fees until it produces an “exhaustive” list of criteria for distributing such fees.